I'm Still Here
by kathryn518
Summary: The second war with Voldemort never really ended, and there were certainly no winners, certainly not Harry Potter who has lost everything. What will Harry do when a ritual from Voldemort sends him to anotherworld? How will he manage in this new world in which he never existed, especially as he sees familiar events building. Likely a Harry/Multi eventually. Looking for a co-author.


**I'm Still Here Chapter 1**

**Can't see nothin' in front of me  
Can't see nothin' coming up behind  
I make my way through this darkness  
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me  
Lost track of how far I've gone  
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed  
On my back's a sixty pound stone**  
**On my shoulder a half mile line**

**Come on up for the rising**  
**Com on up, lay your hands in mine**  
**Come on up for the rising**  
**Come on up for the rising tonight**

**Left the house this morning**  
**Bells ringing filled the air**  
**Wearin' the cross of my calling**  
**On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here**

**Come on up for the rising**  
**Come on up, lay your hands in mine**  
**Come on up for the rising**  
**Come on up for the rising tonight**

**Spirits above and behind me  
Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright  
****May their precious blood forever bind me  
****Lord as I stand before your fiery light****  
**

He felt the cracked cobblestones crunch under his boots as he made his way down the street, with a slight but noticeable limp Thankfully his feet didn't make any sound, the nearly tattered dragonhide boots he wore were spelled with silencing charms. Those took forever to get spelled since dragonhide was highly spell-resistant. The cloak he wore was probably once black, though now it was tattered and stained brown with mud, there were places of discoloration all over the cloak. Results of spells the cloak had taken over time.

His eyes moved over each building as he walked down the street, taking in each one and moving on. One eye, large and clearly unnatural turned and moved around, independent of the other eye. It was constantly looking around and scanning the areas around him. The eye wasn't his originally, but it was now. Conveniently, after his eye had been lost, they'd still had it laying around in one of the trunks. At one time he had thought that the eye on the right side of his face had spawned the nickname Mad-Eye for the original wearer.

It wasn't until Alastor Moody had confided in him before he died, that Harry knew the truth. The "Mad-Eye" nickname had nothing to do with the enchanted fake eye. Moody had earned that nickname not long after he had graduated the Auror Training program. One of his early partners had given it to him because of the manic look he'd get when dealing with dark wizards. Though he used to be called "Mad-Eyes". When he lost the eye they just made it singular. Moody had further confided that the auror who had given him that nickname had died in the first war with Voldemort.

Harry had always thought it morbid that he was using it now to replace his own eye. Even if Alastor had died a few years earlier, it still seemed somewhat gruesome when he stopped and thought about it.

Truth be told though, Harry didn't think about it much. It's not like it mattered anymore.

Harry kept his wand in his hand, and was slowly and casually twirling it in his fingers, as he made his way down Diagon Alley. Less than a decade ago it had been a bustling hub of shops and shoppers.

Now, as he looked around it was a ghost town. Literally. He could see the hazy forms of ghosts in some of the burnt out husks of buildings that remained. Magic itself sustained the charms that kept London non-magicals from noticing the presence of an empty town right in their midst.

His eye flitted over stores he remembered. There was Ollivander's store. It had been destroyed by Voldemort early in the Second War. Harry idly remembered the man's silver-eyed piercing stare. The confusion and non-comprehension when Ollivander had told him that the wand that chose him was the brother of the wand that gave him his first scar. Of course he still had the wand, though he didn't use it often. It was strapped along the bottom of his bad leg.

His eyes moved past other stores. Nothing remained of Quidditch Quality Supplies. His memory flicked over the Nimbus 2000 he had seen in the front window during his first visit to Diagon Alley with Hagrid.

Madame Malkins still had a mannequin standing where the window had been. Of course that was the only thing standing. Harry remembered being there for his first fitting and his first conversation with Draco Malfoy.

He shook his head freeing his mind from the memories of those figurative ghosts. They didn't matter anymore either.

Harry could feel Voldemort's magical presence somewhere ahead of him. It was coming from the general direction of the site of the former Ministry of Magic. Strangely though, he couldn't feel the presence of any of the dozen or so death eaters he had left.

A frown crossed Harry's scarred face as he continued down the street. He wondered what Voldemort could be doing there. There was nothing left except the rubble of the giant building that had once stood there. He knew, Harry and a handful of others had spent three weeks combing through the rubble. All that was recovered was bodies.

He wondered what brought Voldemort out of his hiding place this time to resume their back and forth game of cat and mouse. Because that's what it was now.

What had started as a war had come to an unlikely end on Halloween when Harry was little more than a year old. The war had begun anew in Harry's 14th year when Voldemort had arisen in a new body in part thanks to blood from Harry's own body.

The second war was so much worse than the first one. It had drawn in the entire wizarding world. There were no neutral sides. Anyone or anything that had anything to do with magic had been drawn into the conflict. The conflict had engulfed the entire magical world.

The conclusion had sadly been almost inevitable.

There were no winners. Everyone lost in this war.

The Ministry which, under Cornelius Fudge, had loudly and repeatedly claimed that Voldemort hadn't returned. They had vilified Harry and Dumbledore and anyone who sided with them. They realized their mistake almost a year later, when first he, then Dumbledore had a public duel with Voldemort after escaping the department of mysteries and witnessing the death of his godfather. However Fudge didn't even have time to make the excuses and apologies of politicians.

Voldemort orchestrated a bloody coup. Taking over the entire ministry in a single day. He tried to run things from there. That only lasted a few days.

The counter-assault from the Aurors, and lead by Dumbledore, an assault that Harry had been furious to be forced to have to remain at his Aunt and Uncle's, and told by Dumbledore not to involve himself yet. Dumbledore's assault had pushed the death eater's out of the ministry building itself. At the time it seemed like a victory.

However Voldemort lost the Minsitry Buildings to the assault with only enough resistance to be believable. The victory didn't even weaken Voldemort, since he lost very few death eaters and no important ones. They had been stunned, since Dumbledore and his forces didn't kill, and the few death eater deaths were accidental. They were merely captured and shipped to Azkaban. Of course he promptly freed the death eaters that had been captured at the ministry. Then Voldemort retaliated with "scorched earth" policy. The entire building was destroyed by a gigantic magical detonation. Leaving nothing standing and no one alive. It had also taken out most of the people likely to challenge him.

Voldemort turned his eyes on other targets.

Diagon Alley. Hogsmeade. All became victims of warfare. Nothing seemed sacred, and nothing remained untouched, and there was nothing that Dumbledore seemed to be able to do about the mounting death toll and rising attacks. More, Dumbledore had refused to let Harry do anything but remain at his relatives, "where he was safe."

The International Confederation of Wizards refused to lend aid as the situation had spun out of control. They had tried to blockade the entire island of Britian, hoping to contain Voldemort and his strengthening army of Death Eaters.

He waited almost three months, until after school had begun in the fall, and then he attacked three international schools in quick succession in response. Beauxbatons. Durmstrang. The Salem Academy. He killed or converted anyone who stood in his way at the schools. Then he razed the schools to the ground.

When the ICW convened in another emergency session to discuss response, Voldemort launched a surprise attack on the convention itself. So quick and brutal was his attack that there had been only a handful of survivors out of over 300 wizards. Though Voldemort did suffer some casualties in the battle. Dumbledore had attempted to duel Voldemort, only for Voldemort to match him, leaving the duel even, before Voldemort apparated away.

Voldemort next attacked Hogwarts. The last stronghold in all of Europe. Harry had watched as Voldemort had outdueled and killed Dumbledore. He and several friends escaped out of secret passages, but the school itself fell. And Harry and friends were on the run from Voldemort.

The goblins had attempted to remain neutral in the conflict. After the slaughter at the ICW, and the attack at Hogwarts, Voldemort had marched to Gringotts bank and demanded they surrender themselves to him.

The goblins, being a proud race, and unwilling to surrender their freedom to anyone, had attacked Voldemort and his envoy viciously. Voldemort escaped, but it had been the first setback that he had suffered, since several Death Eaters he had brought with him, fell there.

He returned the next day with every Death eater in his force and assaulted Gringotts in a battle that lasted for over 24 hours. Voldemort crushed the goblins eventually. Determined to exterminate the entire race. However the losses his own group suffered were significant as well. Leaving him with somewhere around a third of his initial forces dead.

Harry missed part of that battle, being chased through the country side on a mission to find horcruxes. Not that he had anything more to work with other than vague hint, a snitch and a book of children's tales. Harry couldn't help but clench his jaw when he thought about Dumbledore and his idiocy. His list of grievances was long indeed.

Voldemort had attempted to take over all the vaults only to find that the goblins had magically sealed off the tunnels with goblin blood wards and seemingly collapsed them. Voldemort did not have access to the wealth in there, though with the economy in shambles it wasn't much like it mattered.

Eventually their search had lead them back to Gringott's where Ron's brother Bill had shown them a secret entrance to the tunnels. Bill told them that he was one of three non-goblins who could access the tunnels, as he was ranked highly as a curse-breaker. Though he had no idea who the other two people were, Harry, Hermione and Ron were happy to be able to have someplace secure to rest. They had even used the ruins and tunnels beneath Gringotts as a base for a little while.

He remembered exploring those tunnels and vaults with Ron and Hermione. They practiced their ward and curse breaking under Bill's supervision, breaking into now abandoned vaults. In a rare moment of leisure the three of them had even taken the time to find some of the Death Eater vaults and pack huge amounts of their gold into multi-compartment trunks. They took great pleasure in doing so as they broke into the Lestrange, the Carrow, and the Malfoy vaults.

At the moment the gold was relatively useless since for all intents and purposes there was no economy. But Ron liked to joke that when the war was over he would be rich and a hero. However, he never got the chance to be either. He had perished shortly after pushing Harry out of the way of a spell from Voldemort; taking the spell meant for Harry in his back. Occasionally Harry wondered if Ron would make the same decision today, given what he'd become.

Harry knew two large magically expanded internal parts of the trunk he wore shrunken and hanging on an unbreakable necklace around his neck were filled with that gold. He didn't need the gold for any purpose. He just didn't need the space in the trunk for anything else really.

Now it was just another memento. Like his parents photo-album that Hagrid had gotten him, or the pieces of his first firebolt. The one Sirius had gotten him. Harry had another broom stored in there, but he never gave up the pieces of the first one. One of the only gifts he'd ever received from anyone in his life he felt even closely resembled a parental figure. Another person lost because of Dumbledore's pathological need to keep secrets.

Harry tore his thoughts away from that line of thought. There was no good in dwelling on his intense anger for a man years gone. He returned his focus to the here and now. Back to the game between he and Voldemort.

That's what it had become. It wasn't a war any more. They were all that was left. They were all that had been left for almost a year now. Harry had no friends or allies left alive.

Well, almost no friends.

He glanced up at the sky by instinct and could see Hedwig's white outline in the sky. Hedwig had been his constant companion since he'd been introduced to the magical world, and now she was his only companion.

Voldemort had merely a handful of death eater's or servants left alive, and of course his damned snake. Nagini always slithered around her master. But beyond those handful of servants, Voldemort had no one. And nowhere to recruit more.

Hell… the magical world itself had a handful of people left alive.

Now it was just a continuous cycle. One or the other of them would step outside of wherever they were hiding behind obscuring wards at the time to draw the other out. The other would attack, and one or the other would gain the upper hand before the one at a disadvantage would escape.

Voldemort refused to die or let himself be killed. Harry refused to lose and leave Voldemort alive before succumbing to oblivion himself. So one or both would retreat to lick his wounds, while the other waited for the inevitable next confrontation.

Harry hated Voldemort with his entire being. Revenge was all that motivated him at this point. Voldemort had quite successfully taken everything from Harry. His parents. His innocence and wonder of the magical world. His friends. Any desire he had for a future. His entire life.

The constant conflicts with Voldemort had even taken its toll on his health. Harry limped through the street toward the ministry because of a spell that hit his leg and had destroyed half the muscle there. That and his missing eye was merely the most visible. His body bore scars everywhere from the constant conflicts he'd been in.

His body would likely not even be mobile if it hadn't been for the runes that covered a large portion of the dragonhide armor he wore. Studying runes and integrating them into his body armor had been a long, and painful but necessary process. It had been something that Bill and Hermione had come up with after he had taken the curse in his leg. In the same fight that they had lost Ron.

Runes to strengthen his armor for protection. Runes for nearly anything and everything.

The branding of the rune into the dragonskin had been time consuming, but it was the powering of the rune from his magical core that hurt. Each time he had to power a rune for a permanent basis, and affixed to his armor, it was like volunteering for the Cruciatus curse, and then left him magically exhausted for days after, as his magical core expanded and adjusted to each new drain on it.

It had been Hermione that suggested that she or Bill help power the rune initially and then Harry attempt to give the final push of power to the run to pemanize it and link it to himself. They never got to explore the idea before he'd lost her too. God he missed her. She was a genius and one of his best friends for years.

He was 23, but most times physically he felt like he was 83. Mentally he felt like he had always been 40. He moved with the weariness of someone who was mentally and emotionally dead or exhausted.

Every time he and Voldemort had one of these encounters it usually lead to one or the other of them injured enough to require a month or two of recovery. Harry was Voldemort's personal obsession now. Harry alone had done more damage to his forces than anyone else, and the margin wasn't close. After he'd lost the last of his friends and allies, Harry went on the offensive. And it had resulted in the current state of affairs.

Though the question was academic, at times Harry wondered if he had personally killed more witches and wizards than Voldemort had. He was nearly positive that he was responsible for more deaths, either in directly killing enemies, or foolishly leading friends to their doom.

It had been almost three months since their last encounter. That one Voldmort had been the one forced to retreat, though Harry had managed to take out two of his remaining death eaters during the fight. They had attempted to trap him, and he had turned it around on them.

Harry had spent the last four months as a non-entity ghosting through the muggle world. Eating or sleeping when he required it. It wasn't hard to steal when one had an invisibility cloak, a disillusionment spell, confundus spells, notice-me-not spells, not to mention various memory charms and obliviates. He stole most of what he needed to live, and even some things he didn't need.

Before the last encounter (when he was recovering for almost 3 weeks from a curse that made his bones grow uncontrollably) he had stolen what had probably been his eighth muggle electronic device. It was mostly just a project to keep him from going insane. But he had been immeasurably satisfied when he'd managed to etch runes into a popular mp3 player that allowed him to use it when he ventured through magic areas, and continually charged it.

He'd hardly taken the headphones off since he'd managed that bit of magic. Music forced his mind to focus on something, and had let him try and figure out other ways to apply the runes he was learning in the test and see method.

Of course when he'd tried the same rune structure on a television in a muggle motel, it had managed not only to blow out the wiring on the television but melted the wiring in half of the motel as well. But, the activity as a whole kept him focused on something beside waiting for Voldemort to stick his head again. He wouldn't go so far as to say it kept him sane, but it helped him from going completely round the bend.

Even Hedwig seemed to have favorite songs because there were several where she'd land on his shoulder when they played.

Okay… maybe it just kept him from going _further_ around the bend.

He stopped for a brief moment. Taking a few moments to organize his thoughts so that he wouldn't be entering the fight in a whimsical mood. Who knew what half-brained trap Voldemort was trying to come up with this time.

Harry often wondered why Voldemort continued. Maybe it was just out of habit at this point. There was no more wizarding world to rule.

He could clearly sense himself getting closer to Voldemort ahead of him. He glanced up to Hedwig but she gave no warning or sign that there was anyone but Voldemort ahead of himself. That in and of itself was suspicious. He began stretching his senses out warily preparing in case any of the deatheater's were lying in wait to ambush him.

As he approached the ruins he saw that some of the rubble had been cleared out, and there was Voldemort, standing and waving his wand in the air, clearly casting at a tall thin object, though he couldn't hear the words. Voldemort was surrounded by different piles of rocks and rubble, though nothing that completely interfered with Harry's line of sight.

Harry moved closer more warily now. It wasn't like Voldemort to leave himself wide open like this. Harry stepped forward preparing to call out, there really was no point in trying to sneak up on one another, they could always sense each other.

He took that step only to get blown back twenty feet. He rolled onto the ground springing to his feet out of the roll, expecting a follow-up attack from Voldemort. But there was nothing.

A ward. Voldemort had taken enough time to set up a physical ward, and then hadn't tried to attack when Harry had been caught off guard. He looked around closely, and tried to stretch out with his senses in an attempt to sense the area around him, for any Death Eater's waiting to spring forward and trap him.

Harry frowned. Something was very wrong with this picture.

He flicked his wand slightly and cast a quick bludgeoning hex at the shield, the shield flickered into the visible spectrum as it absorbed the spell.

Harry frowned as he saw Voldemort glance over toward him and then quite blatantly look away, turning his attention back to whatever he was doing. Not bothering to order an attack, or even banter with him.

Well. That was never a good sign.

Harry quickly used a finger to trace a rune in the air with his magic sending it forward to hit the shield. It fizzled there, but it showed that the shield was a complete dome around Voldemort. Not that he really had expected anything less. As both Harry's and Voldemort's power grew they had taken to using runes and ward schemes when they needed decent shielding since even protego's required attention.

Harry had been the one to come up with a portable shield rune set up. It had taken him 3 months to perfect the concept. Voldemort had shamelessly copied him and managed to come up with the same one in a month. It was convenient because if either had 30 seconds time, they could set up the ward, and those wards could repel anything. And since they weren't shields or spells, they were able to stop even unforgiveables.

Harry let out a visible sigh and then lifted his empty left hand as he once more reached forward with his magic, he felt out the ward in front of him and began to take it apart. The rune he had cast continued to burn against the shield, keeping the dome in the visible spectrum. One of the two downsides of the ward schemes was that they could be taken apart with a minute and a half or so of work. The other is that they worked both ways. Spells couldn't go in, but they couldn't get out either.

It wasn't anything super complicated, Voldemort hadn't had time to set something like that up. It was nothing like the wards that had once guarded Gringotts, or Hogwarts. Those wards took a long time to set up and could take weeks or more for a single person to unravel. Clearly it was just supposed to delay Harry long enough for Voldemort to complete whatever he was doing.

Harry moved his fingers unconsciously as he worked at unraveling the strings of magic that held the ward together. Years of experience now with breaking through wards made it a relatively simple task, just slightly time consuming by necessity. The movements of his fingers were wholly unnecessary but something he did more out of habit than anything. His wand was held in his hand at his side, forgotten for the moment. When unraveling wards, where there were no set counter curses or spells, Harry had always felt it more of a hindrance to focus his magic through the wand, rather than attempt to feel it and manipulate it directly. The first time he had told Bill that. Bill had promptly forced him to stop using his wand and drilled him mercilessly at runic warding and cursebreaking.

He frowned, diverting his concentration slightly to note that even as the ward began to fray, Voldemort seemed to finish his incantation and focus a large amount of energy directly from his wand into the object in front of him.

The ward frayed and with an audible crack, like the sound of breaking glass, the dome, which had remained visible broke apart. It was as if it had been made of china that had just shattered. He strode forward, wand spinning in his hand, his walk and expression was cautious though his voice was nothing but insolent. "What on earth are you up to this time Tommy boy?"

He didn't really feel the need to taunt, but Voldemort had always had a short temper and it was never something he could completely restrain. It tended to make him slightly more reckless which made him slightly more vulnerable. The best way to do that was to taunt him.

Voldemort didn't even acknowledge Harry as he continued to watch the energy pulses from the artifact in front of him. Pulses that seemed to be increasing in power and brightness.

As he came around the rubble, Harry realized that it was a large mirror that he was sending energy into. Harry's eye was distracted by the glowing runes beneath Voldemort that seemed to form a circle of energy around him.

As tempted as he was, he knew better than to just fire a spell hoping to interrupt whatever ritual Voldemort was engaged in. Such an action would likely have explosive repercussions.

He let his gaze travel back over the mirror, with a start. He realized that it looked familiar. It took him a second to realize what he was looking at, and the pulses of light coming from it didn't help. But he managed to glimpse enough of it to realize that it was the Mirror of Erised.

Harry wondered where Voldemort had dug that artifact up from. He hadn't seen that since he was 11, and he stopped Quirrelmort from getting the sorcerer's stone. He remembered the first time he looked in it. It was the first time in his life he had ever seen his parents. At least a memory that he could remember clearly. He remembered Dumbledore's warning about people wasting their lives away in front of it.

Of course despite the danger it posed, Dumbledore in all his infinite wisdom decided it best to leave it in an unguarded and unwarded classroom where any curious first year could stumble across it.

Voldemort finally turned to regard Harry fully, though the pulsing energy from the runic circle and the mirror seemed to continue to grow stronger. Voldemort kept his wand pointed at the mirror and his red eyes gleamed as he stared at Harry, a grin stretching across his face. "I wondered if you'd come to see me off!"

Harry pointed his wand at Voldemort, his voice flat. "I've been trying to see you 'off' for years. You didn't have to do all this just to get my attention." His eyes fell upon the pale white features in front of him. Voldemort was hairless and to a large extent almost featureless.

To the casual glance Voldemort hadn't changed in almost 10 years since that night in the cemetery, when he "invited" Harry to be part of his rebirth. He flashed back to being tied to a gravestone, and then out of his memory again. He saw Voldemort's red eyes glaring back at him.

Voldemort shook his head. "No boy, I'm leaving this world. Away. Someplace you won't be able to find me"

Harry didn't wait to hear anything else, he flicked his wand slightly, shooting a bone-breaking hex right at Voldemort's head. Voldemort didn't even flinch, as the hex ricocheted off the pulsing energy surrounding him.

This just seemed to amuse Voldemort further, his laughter was louder. "You can't break through, the ring protects me during the ritual."

Harry changed approaches and fired a blasting hex at the runes on the ground and then had to dive out of the way as the hex reflected right back at him. His eyes widened when he realized that the runes in the circle around Voldemort were sketched out of blood. Harry's eyes flicked around instinctively, and fell on a pile of black robed bodies that were piled beside some rubble. Bodies he hadn't noticed earlier and based on the way they were piled, were clearly dead.

Deatheaters. Good riddance.

His mind working furiously as he tried to figure out what Voldemort was up to, he shook his head, "Such a reward for your loyal followers. What's the matter? Did they final realize that you're pathetic? Or did you get tired of the fact that they had a dozen braincells between the lot of them?"

Voldemort's voice was filled with immense satisfaction. "They gave their lives so that their lord could leave this realm, and find some place that I may take my rightful place as the ruler of the wizarding world! This is the moment boy. I leave you, where you will never be able to find me! Much less follow me!"

Harry's eyes narrowed and snarled, "You're not going anywhere! Except onto that next great adventure!"

Without waiting for a reply, Harry pointed his wand at the ground in front of himself and half growled **_"Terra Conquasso!" _** Harry poured a large amount of power through his wand.

Though the tip of his wand glowed slightly, nothing else happened for a moment before the ground in front of him began to shake and rumble. After a few moments the ground itself began to crack and rupture as the spell continued to shake.

Voldemort frowned in confusion for a moment before his eyes widened in shock and horror, however he was powerless to do anything as a crack in the ground formed and headed right for his runic circle. The crack split the runes holding the circle together causing a giant surge of light blinding them both.

Harry's wand was in the air even as his head was turned away firing another bonebreaking hex right at Voldemort, however it fizzled against the shield Voldemort put up with a flick of his own wand. He retaliated quickly with a blasting hex that Harry batted away with his free hand almost negligently.

Harry changed tacks, aiming his wand at Voldemort, and then flicking it quickly to send a blasting hex of his own, only to change directions slightly at the last moment to send it directly at the mirror. He didn't know what Voldemort had done, what a ritual like this would do. His logic was simple. This was something Voldemort wanted, so by extension this was something Harry wanted to stop.

However the blasting hex hit the mirror and the silver surface seemed to ripple from the impact but didn't do anything to stop the frequencies of the flashes from quickly turning into a strobe effect, as the whining sound grew louder. The shaking ground from the spell he cast earlier didn't seem to be slowing, on the contrary it seemed to be increasing the ground rumbling loudly, despite Harry having canceled the spell.

Harry couldn't manage to keep his balance and fell to the ground. Though he didn't manage to stop the follow-up to the first spell Voldemort sent apparently aimed at his face, instead impacted him right in the chest, as he fell. Harry heard and felt several bones snap and it felt like his entire chest caved in. Harry tasted a flood of blood in his mouth even as he cursed himself for his own carelessness.

"Too late Harry Potter! I go now to a place where there is no Boy-Who-Lived!" Voldemort turned away from Harry, and staggered on the shaking ground, he managed to keep his feet though as he lurched forward toward the Mirror.

Harry saw Voldemort's hand reach out and disappear _inside _the mirror. Rage exploded inside him at the idea that his mortal enemy might escape. "I swear Tom, you will never escape! I will be the end of you!" At least that's what he tried to say, he coughed and gagged out several parts of it.

Harry wasn't even sure Voldemort heard him. If he did. Voldemort certainly didn't acknowledge it he half stumbled and half fell forward into the mirror, his entire body disappearing into the silvery liquid.

Despite Voldemort's disappearance, the ground continued to shake as Harry lay there; and it seemed to be getting worse. He wasn't sure what was happening, and knew he was in trouble. Whatever curse he took right in the chest had obviously gotten through his dragonhide armor and was doing bad things to his internal organs.

However only one thought entered his mind. Following Voldemort. He crawled forward along the shaking ground. The rumbling around him grew worse and the vibrating sound from the mirror seemed to be getting worse.

Inch by agonizing inch he crawled forward to the Mirror. It took him what seemed like hours to crawl the handful of yards forward. When he reached the mirror he put his hand forward and his hand slid right into the glass like it was liquid.

With a last groan of effort he heaved himself forward pushing his entire body into the glass of the mirror, aided by a sudden jolt in the ground that threw him forward.

Harry saw white and knew no more.

There was the loud screech of an owl as it dived after her master, disappearing into a flash of light as well.

Five seconds later the entire area exploded in light.

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**Author's notes: **

**_Terra Conquasso: Earth Shakes._**

I decided to go ahead and post the beginning of this Harry Potter story. So I could get it out there and get it rolling. Rather than just have it sit and gather dust. I do expect this chapter to go through some revisions too.

A couple of things you should know.

1st) AN UPDATE TO "IN ANOTHER LIFE" IS COMING SHORTLY! Keep your pants on!

2nd) I'm in school so this will update slowly, far slower than I started out with In Another Life.

3rd) I am aware the general idea of world traveling and all that has been done before and I'm bound to hit some cliches. If you're looking for those stories who have done it well, I highly recommend the stories, C'est La Vie, Delende Est, and Sacrificial Second Chance. I hope like IAL that I'm able to my own spin on things that people enjoy.

3rd) I do NOT know where this story is going yet. I have only plotted out the start. From there it's relatively open and I hope to have massive input from someone on this. That being said, I expect this to feature alot of fun characters.

4th) It will probably be a Multi or Harem-type fic. If that's not your thing, you should probably stop reading and you really shouldn't message me about the request below.  
That being said, anyone who reads IAL will probably be able to tell you I will NOT write the "oh he looked at her and now they're soulbonded and in love for ever and life is all happy fluffy bunnies and rainbow unicorns!". Pardon me while I barf at the idea of that.

It took my main couple twenty chapters to MEET for the first time in IAL. So I am all about build up and character development.

**5th) I'm looking for someone to collaborate on this story with. And yes I mean a genuine collaboration. We both do writing and editing. Now I've started and got some ideas, as you can read above. But I want your ideas too. **

**My requirements for this are  
****A) must be literate, and interested in Harry Potter and exploring that sandbox  
B) You must be someone who is creative and willing to explore different ideas. You must be open minded!  
C) You must be willing to argue about ideas as we come to dispute. (Ask the AMAZING Samantha Minuet what it is like to work with me. She doesn't have the inclination as she prepares to write her first book! But she's still an awesome friend who can tell you what it's like to work with me on In Another Life) ****  
**

**If you are interested in working with me on a project like this. Please don't hesitate to message me either here or via yahoo. my name there is kathryn_518 as well. Do not be offended if I do an interview of sorts. I don't want to entrust a collaboration with someone who is going to go "they see each other and then sexy time and more sexy time and eightsome! yay!" *facepalms* **

**As always, please read and review!**


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